Once upon
a time, in a town in southern California, there lived Elwood & Dorothy.
Elwood's grandmother Maggie came from Denmark in 1861 with her first
husband who was seeking gold.
She was widowed three times
and had seven children by the time she married Elwood's grandfather,
Chris in 1878. Chris had also come from afar, from Nova Scotia, Canada.

Dorothy's
family had come more recently from Colorado, settling in
the desert area in hopes of a "desert cure"
for Dorothy's older sister who had tuberculosis. . . .

Hi! I'm Polli, fourth child of Elwood and Dorothy. As you can see,
I'm very much "into" my family's history. As you
go through my other pages,
I hope to introduce you to ancestors who have become very dear
to me.

But for now,
I'll tell you a bit about myself. I was born and raised in
Banning, California. After high school I attended Azusa Pacific
College (now University), where I met my honey and best friend,
Randy. You can see us here in one of my favorite pictures.
It's my favorite because it was taken in Grindelwald, Switzerland,
on our 1997 trip to Europe. (No, we haven't changed a bit!)

My friends know me best for my love of yard sales (where I can shop 'til
I drop!), my love for working with my computer, and beading jewelry.
I read almost anything, but my favorites are JRR Tolkein, CS Lewis,
George McDonald, Agatha Christie, and LM Montgomery. Randy and I share
a love for travelling. Our decision to homeschool our daughters has led
me into a life of learning which I love! Our daughters are now grown and building their own lives, while Randy and I build for our future. Our business websites are: Outdoors Northwest and Polli's Pretties.

You can't know me long without
knowing that I love Germany and anything German! In 1974, I spent a summer in Frankfurt with Youth With
A Mission (YWAM), an interdenominational missions group. Two years later,
in 1976, Randy and I both returned to Hurlach, Germany, to attend YWAM's
School of Evangelism. YWAM's German base is in the village castle, that
imposing edifice you can see in the photo to the right. What fun it was
to live in a castle! Part of the school was a three-month-camping trip
-- with 50 people in a little blue Mercedes bus -- through the Middle
East. We traveled through Austria, Italy, Greece, Cyprus, Israel, Egypt,
back to Greece, through Turkey, into Yugoslavia, and Bulgaria, before
returning to Germany. That year was a high point in our lives, one that
in a large part formed who we are now. We still hope and pray that we
might be involved in ministry there again someday.

After returning
to the US, I worked with World Vision for four years, dealing
with correspondence and phone inquiries. In 1983, Randy and
I moved to Southern Oregon, where he worked with Harry & David
and with Jackson & Perkins.
In September 1999, we all moved to the beautiful Skagit Valley
in northwest Washington, when Randy found a new job with Etera,
a company who grows and sells perennial plants. We love it
here! See our smiling faces?

Oh yes, the
two recent additions are our daughters Christi (on the left)
and Cathie (on the right). Aren't they beautiful? They keep
me especially busy because we are a homeschooling family. We
started homeschooling from kindergarten, and continued
all through their school years. They are now beautiful young women, building their own lives!

Our family's favorite pastimes are camping in our tent trailer, stream
fishing, rafting on the river, and MORE travelling!

Ghost towns have always fascinated me, because I wanted
to know who lived there, and what the residents were like.
That desire naturally led me into my studying my own family
history, learning about my ancestors--what were their lives
like? What were their joys and sorrows?

As a family, we have enjoyed
travelling to places our ancestors have lived (and collecting
the t-shirts!), to see their graves, or their houses, or the
land they farmed. It gives Christi and Cathi a sense of connection
to the history they study in school to talk of our ancestors
and the parts they played in various events of our history.

We have an ancestor who was on the Mayflower, several
who were among the Puritans, a Minuteman who died in the first
days of the Revolution, another killed on Lexington Green.
Others were Loyalists. Several fought in the Civil War, on
both sides! One family in East Germany suffered persecution from the government for standing for their faith. Among our ancestors are Germans, British, Danes,
Scots, Canadians, and Native Americans. We are learning to
appreciate the richness and diversity of other cultures and
nations, and to appreciate the part these people played in
the growth of our nation, as well as in our own personal history.

To learn more about
these people we have grown to love, please go back to Polli's Place!
From there, links will take you to visit the different
branches of our family!

But first. . . .

I want to dedicate my website to my parents,
who started it all!

Dorothy Page Jost
1910-1992

Elwood Burton Jost
1907-1992

"Remember those who led you,
who spoke the word of God to you; and considering
the result of their conduct, imitate their faith." Hebrews
13:7 (NASB)